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If you are following me on Twitter (@timperialstout), I’m sure that you have noticed that I have been blowing up your timeline with beer check-ins via Untappd. Sorry about that. Hopefully, you’re just a little jealous that I get to have an entire week of unencumbered liver destruction at the hands of many Eastern and Southern beers that I either very rarely get to drink or have never had before. Needless to say, I’m having a blast!

I’m pretty sure that I could be happy living in Asheville solely thanks to two establishments. First, Thirsty Monk. Thirsty Monk is one of the best beer bars I have ever been to. The owner actually lived in Seattle for a while and is a huge fan of The Stumbling Monk in Cap Hill, as well as Brouwer’s and Hale’s Ales. The Thirsty fella is much larger than the Stumbling one, and I’d venture to say that it’s more true to form in its Belgian authenticity. The layout and minimal food offerings (cheese, soft pretzels, humus plate) bring much reminiscing to my time in the true home of the Belgian Beer Bar Experience. Though, the top floor is home to all American beer taps, many of which are local. It’s the bottom floor that is the real lair of the monk. All taps in the depths are of Belgian style, though not all are imports. During my visit there were several Belgian styles on tap from American brewers such as The Bruery, North Coast and Allagash.

The best part about Thirsty Monk, other than the decor and great taplist, is that they offer taster trays (four samples) and half pints. No beer is excluded. This is very similar awesomeness to Uber Tavern’s relatively new service upgrade in allowing tasters of any beer on tap. When you order a taster tray at TM you are also given a tasting notes card and a pencil so that you can, of course, write tasting notes and have something to take home with you so that you can remember what you had and if you enjoyed it. This is especially helpful for me in my current situation…drinking beers that I very rarely if ever have, that is.

That brings us to the second establishment that would make it easy for me to permanently reside in Asheville, Bruisin’ Ales. Before I made it here I had stopped into a few local markets, wine shops and the other bottle shop in town, Hops & Vines. No one seems to compare to Bruisin’ Ales in selection, and really, that’s what you want in a bottle shop. BA has an exceptional selection of locals, regionals and Belgians (lots and lots of Belgians). They also have a great collection of glassware available and sell t-shirts with their logo on them.

The location is prime, right in the mix of it all downtown. It’s actually on the same road as Barley’s Taproom and Mellow Mushroom, two great beer bars. I found the staff to be very kind and knowledgeable. As is always the case when I’m in a new place with a huge collection of beers that are unavailable in Seattle, I was wildly overwhelmed. I decided that I should hold off on purchasing the final bounty of bottles that I will smuggle back to Seattle until later in the trip when I have a better idea of what’s good, rare, etc. I grabbed a few bottles to take back to the dwelling for late night options. These included Terrapin So Fresh & So Green fresh hop IPA, Terrapin Gamma Ray wheatwine, New Holland Blue Sunday Sour, Weyerbacher Riverva 2010 and Ska Nefarious Ten Pin imperial porter. Good times.